


In His Name Our God Have Mercy

by AssistedRealityInterface



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Brainwashing, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Medical Trauma, Morally Ambiguous Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-20
Updated: 2014-11-20
Packaged: 2018-02-26 08:18:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2644748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AssistedRealityInterface/pseuds/AssistedRealityInterface
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick Fury plays the game of god and wins. The price is steep. And the one who paid the highest price can never know his debts. </p><p>There is nothing worth doing you don’t dirty your hands for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In His Name Our God Have Mercy

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in one sitting to mostly work out Phil's death and the aftermath for Nick's team and to examine Nick's motives and suffering while he pieced his husband back together. It was a lot of fun, honestly!

The first time Nick sees Phil again after he touches his throat and finds a fading pulse is when his chest is fresh and red, coated in his own blood.

He’s still and cold then. He’s still _dead._ They haven’t started the injections yet. First round was today. Three series total. One while he was dead, one during the surgery, and one…one after.

Nick had been gently but firmly told by the doctors it was better if he stayed away. There was nothing for him to find here, and if he saw Phil like this—well, maybe it might weaken his resolve.

Nick smiles, steely and sharp and tinged with bitterness. No. What the hell did these doctors know about _resolve?_

They’d held the funeral yesterday. John had almost killed him before taking Grant and leaving. Nick knew where he was, John knew Nick knew, and they both knew that it was, frankly, for the best that John stay up in the mountains for awhile. And so Nick didn’t tell him about the GH-325.

Everyone else knew. And, he thought they might hate him, just a little, for betraying Phil’s wishes. But no one would ever say it. They loved Phil too much.

Nick puts his fingers against the glass and watches the doctors sew his husband’s heart back together, thick greasy stitch by thick greasy stitch. The black marks loom in the fresh red muscle, condemning, accusing.

If a single touch could heal him, put him back together, he’d be down there himself with his hand on his husband’s heart. If true love’s kiss did anything more than hurry a movie toward its ending, he’d be down there with them, his lips on Phil’s pale, bloodless mouth.

Instead, he watches them sew his heart up before there’s a pause, a murmur; a flurry of activity that leaves Nick’s chest tight with concern.

“You shouldn’t be up here, Nicholas,” a voice says from behind him. Nick grits his teeth.

“Cut the shit,” he says. “You knew I’d come.”

“Of course I did,” Doctor Glass says, raising his eyebrows. “You’ve never listened to good advice before. Why should I think you would start now?”

“What do you want,” Nick says, too exhausted to make it anything more than a sigh.

“His heart might not make it,” Glass says, keeping his voice gentle. “It took the brunt of the blow, you understand.”

Nick closes his eyes and feels tears burn in his injured, scarred ducts.

“Of course it did,” he says. He should laugh, he thinks. It’s almost _too_ perfect.

“The donor might not have a capable heart,” Glass explains. “I’m sorry, Nicholas. This might not work—“

“Don’t tell me that,” Nick snaps. “If the donor can’t be used as a full heart transplant, use it as a piggyback. Replace valves. _Something._ ”

“Nicholas, I don’t think you understand how a heart transplant works,” he says.

“Of course I don’t, that’s your goddamn job,” Nick snaps. “Put whatever you need in to make him work. But you keep his heart intact. That—that’s the best part of him.”

“It’s been split almost entirely in two,” Glass reminds him, gentle.

Nick closes both his eyes and rubs his temples.

“Do what you need to do, then,” he says. “Just…do what has to be done.”

It’s not the right thing, maybe, he thinks as Glass leaves and Nick watches them make a Y-shaped incision in the cold body of the donor. But he’s not sure what that might be anymore. Not without his good eye.

…

Nick doesn’t come back for a few weeks. They’re just starting the first round of transplants.

He hasn’t seen Victoria in a week. He’s kept tabs on Jasper, because if anyone’s going to make her eat, it’s him. Jasper at least tells him that much, but he can feel the frustration and exhaustion coming through the phone.

Felix took the day off today for the first time in twenty years. Nick allowed it, of course, because John was making them both exhausted and bitter even when he was hundreds of miles away. It’s all right if Felix takes the day off now. There’s no team for him to take care of.

“Nick?”

Nick freezes.

“Nick?”

“Phil,” Nick exhales, his throat swelling up. “Baby, what are you doing out of bed? It’s not…”

“…Sir?”

Nick looks up to see Steve Rogers standing in front of his desk at parade rest, his hands behind his back. His head is cocked, just slightly.

“Are you all right?” Steve asks.

Nick looks him up and down slowly, wordless. It wasn’t that Steve sounded like Phil. But he had hoped, and Steve was so close.

Too close. Too close to Phil’s heart, which was now rent in fucking _two_ because of the man standing in front of his desk right now like he hadn’t just left Nick blind, his hands covered in blood.

“No,” Nick says, his voice short. “We buried Phil two days ago, Captain.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve says. And maybe he means it, but it definitely doesn’t matter. “He was a good man. I know he was. And I’m sure…”

Steve shifts from foot to foot, caught off-guard. Nick almost relishes the nervousness on his face, petty as it is.

“I’m sure he loved you,” Steve says, nodding.

“I’m sure he did, Captain,” Nick says. “There’s a reason I still wear my ring.”

He doesn’t deserve to. He can understand, now, why Melinda took hers off. It hangs heavy on his hand, like a reminder of his failure.

“And he loved you, too,” Nick adds. Just to watch him flinch and cringe. It’s cruel, he thinks, but he’s owed that much.

“He deserved better, sir,” Steve says, humble boy from Brooklyn. He shakes his head, his golden locks shining in the overcast light struggling to reach through the clouds and into the building.

“Hill wants to see you downstairs,” Nick says, cutting himself off before he can think of something else to add. “She’s waiting.”

“Right,” Steve says, leaving Nick to his work without a word. He catches sight of himself in the polished Triskelion walls and sighs.

He descends the stairs and looks up at the sun. He wonders, briefly, as he searches for it behind grey clouds, if this is how everyone else felt looking at him. If he was so bright, so beyond their reach. If he was so loved to be like the sun.

Phil had looked to him like he was the sun, he thinks. So had Bucky. They had loved the sun and craved its light.

Then again, so had Icarus.

Steve sighs and makes his way downstairs. The clouds move over the sun entirely, and the light is gone.

…

The next time Nick sees Phil, he’s not really there.

Nick’s on enough pills to kill a horse at this point. He’s getting old, going insane. The usual.

He sighs, rubs his temples, and looks up at the window of their home. Phil had spent twenty years decorating their safe house, and he sits, shivering, in a quilt Phil had kept from his grandmother’s house. It smells like him, but heavier. Nick wears it anyway.

It’s a trick of the moonlight and his desperation overwhelming him, he knows. Combine that with the staggering amount of prescriptions he’s taking, and it’s no surprise Phil is standing in front of the window, giving him an affectionate little smile.

“Hi,” he says. “Nick? Is it time yet? I’m tired.”

“What? Sure, baby,” Nick says. “Come to bed. Come…come to bed.”

Phil nods, smiles, and Nick lays down in their bed, blanket still wrapped around him.

He wakes up in the morning alone, frustrated, and exhausted.

He pays another visit downstairs.

“We’re almost done with the first round of transplants,” Glass explains to him as Nick watches, wordless. “Once we are, then we’ll need to perform the necessary brain surgeries to consolidate the GH-325 in his system. As long as we make proper adjustments to the hippocampus, along with the donor’s organs, he should suffer no ill side effects.”

“But?” Nick says.

“That’ll take about another three months,” he says. “And they won’t be pretty. I suggest, again, that you stay away, Nicholas.”

“In sickness and in health,” Nick sighs. “Until death do us part.”

“This isn’t death,” Glass says. “This is beyond death. And I don’t think any of us are going to like what we find.”

“I’m not abandoning my husband,” Nick says.

“Focus on the living,” Glass reminds him. “Your team needs you.”

Nick is wordless. Glass sighs, throws his hands up, and lets Nick be.

“I know you’re tired, baby,” Nick says once he’s gone. Phil doesn’t respond. He’s too far away, Nick thinks. He’ll never hear him from here.

“Soon,” Nick promises. “I’ll come back soon. I love you.”

He leaves, but he doesn’t go far. He comes to administration.

Melinda raises her eyebrows when he sits on her desk. “Nick.”

“Tori’s eating again,” Nick says by way of greeting. “She wants noodles this time. Like the kind you made her. Jasper’s tearing what little hair he has out trying to find a good noodle shop.”

“Cravings mean she’s getting better,” Melinda agrees calmly. “How’s Phil?”

Nick frowns. He’d expected more of a reaction. Maybe he shouldn’t have. Melinda was too good at keeping her reactions buried these days.

“He’s going through the first round of brain surgery,” Nick says. “So the GH-325 doesn’t leave him a wreck. He’ll get the second dose tomorrow.”

“Good,” Melinda says. “And how are you doing, Nick?”

Nick rubs the side of his face.

“I can’t look at him,” he says.

“Who, Steve?” Melinda says. “He’s actually come to visit me. I think he heard we were close. He was just interested to hear about Phil, I think.”

Nick doesn’t bother to stop the rush of heated jealousy that fills him with. He sighs.

“He’s just…” Nick trails off.

He doesn’t say anything for a few minutes. Melinda finishes up her files, wordless.

“I’m trying to find the reason Phil died for him,” Nick says. “It must be something. There has to be something. There’s got to be a reason. But—“

“But you can’t,” Melinda says.

“But I can’t,” Nick agrees, sighing. “I can’t find the reason. And I don’t know if that says something about Steve, or me. And I’m _tired.”_

Melinda looks up at him.

“You only want to know who Phil loved more,” she says. “His hero or his husband.”

Nick nods. It hadn’t even occurred to him, but she was right. Of course she was.

“Consider that he didn’t die for Steve,” Melinda says, “but that he died for the Avengers. The initiative his husband had spent years putting together.”

Nick is silent.

“He didn’t die because he loved Steve more. And he didn’t think that his life was worth more than your work. He was perfectly willing to sacrifice himself for your cause. Because you believed in heroes as much as he did.”

She taps her stack of paper against the desk, giving Nick a look. “Do you really want the answer to be that he died for you, Nick? Is that what all this self-reflection is going to lead to?”

Nick doesn’t respond.

She watches him leave seconds afterward with a sigh, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“I know what it’s like,” she says to the empty room, “to be afraid of that. Why do you think I never went back? Why do you think I took off the ring?”

Melinda sighs, looks up at the dark ceiling, and shoves her paperwork aside. She’s going home early today.

Victoria finds a tray full of noodles on her desk the next morning, wrapped neatly in aluminum.

…

The next time Nick sees Phil, he’s bleeding. He’s alive, and he’s bleeding, and he is _screaming._

He stays where he is, wordless. The room is not soundproofed enough that he can’t hear it, echoing in his brain, burrowing into every dark crevice to haunt his nightmares for the rest of his life.

Phil sobs, in a way Nick only ever had heard him weep once or twice. Once for his grandmother, standing in their old apartment and trying to find something to hold onto. Nick had held him then, and it had been enough after awhile to quiet that horrible, heart-rending wailing.

He’d only wept like that one more time, when he’d been in so much pain, tortured to the point where he could barely move, his entire body a trembling mass of cuts and bruises and pain. Nick had lost his eye the last time Phil had wept like that, agonized and broken and pleading.

He couldn’t lose his only good eye. He just _couldn’t._

Nick presses his forehead against the glass and listens to Phil weep, begging. There’s blood on the floor, and Nick can feel his hands smarting with it, wet and sticky.

The doctors all have earplugs in. He remembers when they had the nerve to lecture him about resolve and smiles grimly.

For the first two weeks of surgeries, he just weeps and screams. Nick hears it all the time now: when he’s working, when he’s at home, and when he’s sleeping. His dreams are blood and weeping now, and when he awakens every morning, it’s to a flash of red across his vision, without fail.

The third week, there’s a sign of progress; he moves on his own now, his heart moving without the support of machines. Nick’s not surprised that was the first thing to start working again. Phil’s heart was his best feature.

It, of course, comes with its own drawbacks.

His lips move next, and the weeping gives way to pleading.

The first words Nick hears from his husband’s mouth after four months are simple and succinct.

“I want to die,” Phil wails, his heart rate spiking as someone adjusts the machine settings, the sharp metal edges digging deeper into his brain. “Please, please, I want to die, please…”

Nick opens his mouth to say something, but bile is biting at the back of his teeth, and he clamps his jaw shut again.

“Please,” he begs, again, “please, please just let me die, please, it hurts so _bad,_ I’m so _tired…”_

Nick slams his hand against the glass and feels it splinter and shatter underneath his hand. He’s biting his other hand, muffling his own screams. He didn’t even notice, doesn’t quite put it all together until there’s blood in his mouth.

“Please let me die,” Phil whimpers, soft and strained. “Please let me die, please stop…”

Nick shakes his head.

“I can’t, baby,” he says, his voice cracking. “I’m sorry, I’m _sorry…”_

He can’t give up now. They’re so close, he’s _alive,_ that’s his heart on the monitor, the strongest, bravest, best heart, his lionheart, Phil, _please—_

“ _Nick!”_ Phil screams, and Nick’s heart leaps into his mouth. “Nick, make them stop! They’re hurting me, they’re hurting me! Nick, help me, _please,_ make them _stop—“_

Nick wants to scream. He can’t. There’s no air in his lungs, no blood in his body, no life left in him.

He drops to his knees and puts his hand against the glass. There’s a smear of blood that remains.

“I can’t,” he says. “Please forgive me. Please forget all this.”

He has to get up. He has to leave. He can’t do this. His husband is screaming his name still, begging for him as his brain is ripped to shreds. He can’t do this anymore. He’ll never forgive himself all the debts he still owes Phil if he doesn’t _leave—_

Nick can’t force himself to move. His legs are useless beneath him, his lungs shriveled and his heart withered in his chest.

It’s only when a slim, strong pair of arms hook under his and drag him away, a quiet, cool voice whispering, “Move, Nick,” in his ear that he starts to weep.

The next morning, he’s down there again, and this time, there is no window. There is no wall. He’s in the room with the doctors, wordless, his entire body firm and strong as steel. As strong as his resolve.

It rusts away the more Phil screams for him, his throat strained. Someone finally puts a rubber guard in his mouth to make sure he doesn’t bite off his own tongue, but it doesn’t stop the muffled, broken whimpers, the tears running down his face.

Nick doesn’t move. If he moves, he’s going to fall. He cannot fall. He’s the last line of defense Phil has between life and death, and Nick will be damned if death takes any more from him.

He thinks he can see her, sometimes, in the corner of the room out of the corner of his eye. And death is a _her_ ; he’s not sure why. It’s a medication side effect, maybe, but he says the Hail Mary all the same.

Sometimes when he does, Phil quiets. Nick prays then until he starts to scream again, ragged and broken.

Death winks at him from the corner of the room and the corner of his eye and Nick silently tells her to fuck off. He says another Hail Mary and watches the doctors leave for a break.

“He’s doing better,” Glass tells him, gentle. “He’s responding extraordinarily well to the surgeries. Only another few weeks, and then we’ll have him on the last dose of GH-325. After that…”

“Physical therapy and a hospital stay,” Nick says. “And he’ll think he’s fresh off the boat from Tahiti.”

Glass gives him a little sad smile. “Of course. He’ll be so excited to see you after his vacation.”

“I’m sure,” Nick says, his voice dry.

It makes him leave, at least, which Nick needs right now. Just to have a moment alone.

He wants to touch his husband’s cheek, check for a pulse like he had before, but his touch stutters. He might infect him. He’s so raw, so exposed, so vulnerable.

So he keeps his hand on Phil’s hand, the only place he can find that isn’t a mass of surgical scars and covered in blood, and puts his fingertips against his wrist.

“I’m so, so sorry,” Nick says, and he means it. He so rarely means it that it almost feels good to apologize.

“I love you,” he says. “You’re going to wake up, and you won’t remember any of this, but I’ll remember. And I’ll know you needed me then, and—and for when I couldn’t be there, I swear to god, I’ll be there for the rest of my life. I’m so sorry. Jesus, Phil, I’m so sorry—“

He stirs. Just a little bit. But his pulse flutters in his wrist, and Nick clings, desperate.

“Nick,” Phil says once, blood running past his lips, before he’s silent.

Nick steps back when he hears the doctors coming in from down the hall, wordless.

The machine starts up again, and all that’s left is screaming.

…

Melinda doesn’t even ask when Nick comes and sits on her desk, shaking.

“He loves you,” Melinda says. “He still loves you. That’s not going to change.”

“He’s screaming for me down there day and night,” Nick says. “And I just sit there and watch.”

“Because there’s nothing else you can do,” Melinda says calmly. “He understands, Nick.”

“He’s barely fucking alive right now, he doesn’t understand a thing,” Nick snaps. “And he won’t. Ever. Not if I have anything to say about it.”

He rubs his temples. “He has to forget, Melinda. He’ll never forgive me if he doesn’t forget.”

“You have such little faith in him?” Melinda says. Nick bristles.

“Don’t you start with me about _faith,”_ Nick snaps. “After you—“

“Don’t,” Melinda says, looking up at him with burning eyes. “Don’t finish that sentence.”

The two of them fall silent. Nick gets off her desk with a sigh.

“All we’re doing is hurting each other, being here,” Nick says.

“He doesn’t have to forget,” Melinda presses. “He loves you, he’ll never blame you, he’ll understand—“

“It’s not just for me. I’m not that selfish,” Nick says. “But it’s for him, too. He’ll never wake up screaming because of this. He’ll only remember the ocean, and the beach, and…sunlight. Not a dark fucking room with people picking apart his god damned _brain—“_

“Nick,” Melinda says. “He can handle that.”

“He shouldn’t have to,” Nick snaps. “He should’ve never—had—to _do this—“_

“But he did,” Melinda says. “Honor his sacrifice.”

“I’m trying,” Nick sighs. “Making a few of my own, too. Lest we all forget.”

Melinda sighs. “Jesus, Nick. Don’t do this to yourself.”

“It’s better if he forgets,” Nick says. “He’ll be safer that way. He won’t break down. Won’t be unstable. And the GH-325 won’t hurt him. It won’t…hurt him anymore.”

Nick rubs the side of his face, his injured eye tensing, tingling with pain.

“You’ve got the team picked out,” he says.

“Well, I’m going to have Grant with me,” Melinda says. “So I don’t need to worry about a specialist anymore.”

“John’s home? Huh. He didn’t tell me,” Nick says.

Melinda pauses, looks him up and down, and sighs.

“You do realize no one’s seen you for three weeks, right?” Melinda says. “You’re down there every day for hours, Nick.”

“Oh. It doesn’t feel that long,” Nick says. “I’m glad Grant’s back. So.”

Melinda sighs. “Mm. I have two promising candidates for biochemistry and engineering. They’re just kids, really, but they’re clever.”

“Age is no object. I trust you,” Nick says. “And…”

Melinda sighs and puts her paperwork down. “And I’m going, too.”

There’s a pause.

“Have you told Victoria?” Nick says.

Melinda smiles, small and bitter and tear-stained.

“No, Nick,” she says. “She’d never believe me.”

Nick nods, wordless. Melinda closes the file in front of her.

“So, if there’s nothing else,” she says softly.

“Go file the paperwork, Mel,” Nick says gently. “And go home for the day. It’ll be a few more months until he’s in the hospital. We can start thinking about our next plans then.”

Melinda nods, leaving the room without a word. Nick watches her go, silent, and then walks around to her desk, opening the top drawer.

He recognizes the battered little silver ring that sits in a small velvet box atop stacks of paperwork. But he just closes the drawer and walks away.

…

Nick goes down to his husband in the basement of the Triskelion every day until someone finally turns the machine off.

“We’re going to have to fix the incisions, obviously,” Doctor Glass says. “But it’s been three months. We’ve done all we can do on this front.”

“One more dose of GH-325 should do it,” Nick says.

“Just one. I wouldn’t risk any more,” he agrees. “But once we fix the incisions and give him the dosage, he can be moved to Fairfax. Our people will take care of him there.”

He puts a hand on Nick’s shoulder. “Get some sleep, son.”

“I can’t,” Nick says, his voice cracking.

He sighs and lifts a bottle of pills out of his pocket. Nick raises his eyebrows.

“I can’t be on any more medication, doctor,” he says. “I’m going to end up strung out worse than a dedicated heroin junkie.”

“It’s melatonin,” Glass says. “No addictive properties. But you really should take some.”

Nick sighs, puts the pills in his pocket, and takes Phil’s hand.

When he puts his fingers against Phil’s wrist, he can feel the pulse.

When he dreams that night, the pulse is the only thing he dreams of, slow and heavy beats against his skull, caving it in.

…

Even at Fairfax, Phil’s in the ICU, away from everyone. The only people allowed in are the team, and they sit around him, watching his chest rise and fall.

“I didn’t think…” Felix starts, then trails off.

“It doesn’t matter,” John says, his voice harsh with raw relief, tears in his eyes. “He’s here now. Phil’s here. Look at him, he’s alive…”

“He’ll be in a coma for how long, exactly?” Jasper asks, regarding Nick. He shrugs.

“Don’t know. He needs to recuperate from everything. The injury, the aftermath—all of it. Once he does, he should wake up,” Nick says. “Then a shitload of physical therapy.”

“Two shitloads, probably,” Victoria says, reaching up to smooth his hair from his face. “Hey, Phil. Steve signed your cards for you, you big fucking nerd.”

His heart rate spikes a little and they all laugh. Even Nick. It doesn’t hurt him anymore, because it was only once Phil had held his hand that his heart rate had gone up, before.

Besides—it’s the first time his team has laughed together in almost a year. Nick will take what he can goddamn get at this point.

“I love you,” he sighs, taking Phil’s hand. “Wake up when you’re ready.”

His heart rate spikes again, just a little. Nick’s heart seizes up in response.

There’s a lot of quiet talk, after that—like he’s sleeping and they don’t want to wake him up. It’s not much, but no one’s shouting or crying or screaming, and Melinda and Victoria actually smile at each other, once.

It makes the blood on his hands worth it, Nick thinks. His mother’s voice is in his head as he tells them all to go home and get some sleep.

He doesn’t go home, but he dreams of it. He’s safe in a tiny apartment in the Bronx, it’s a steamy summer day and the box fan rattling in the corner. He’s sitting in his grandfather’s chair and his mother is putting a bandage on his knee where he scraped it.

“Nothing worth doing you won’t get your hands dirty for, Nicholas,” she says, winding the bandage over and over, cinching it tight. “That’s the only way to get anything done. Your own hands, your own mistakes. You understand?”

“I do, mama,” Nick sighs, cringing in pain when she finishes cinching the bandages. “I do, stop making it hurt!”

“It’s going to hurt when you screw up, Nicholas,” she warns him. “Get used to pain now, or you’ll never fix your mistakes.”

She cups his cheeks and kisses his forehead. “I love you, baby. Go get your sisters, granddad’s coming home in time for dinner tonight.”

He nods, scampering down the steps and out into the street, hollering for his sisters down the dusky road, illuminated in shades of rich gold by the sunset.

Nick blinks, and the dream is gone. Phil is sleeping beneath him, waiting.

Nick touches his cheek and is relieved when his hand does not bruise him, hurt him, mark him in any way.

“You were worth this,” Nick says. “All of it. But I’m so glad you won’t remember it.”

He bows and kisses Phil’s forehead. “I love you, baby.”

He doesn’t leave for the night. He’s not sure he can sleep in their bed without Phil next to him, knowing he’s sleeping alone and cold in the hospital.

He goes to work with a stiff, sore back for the next few months. It’s the least painful thing weighing him down at the moment.

…

Six months pass.

He comes to the hospital one day after work and he finds the doctor standing in front of Phil’s door. His heart clenches despite himself.

“He’s awake,” Glass says. “And he’s up and about, actually. Not as strong as he could be. But—but better than any of us could have hoped for.”

Nick nods.

“He wants to see you,” he says gently. “You were the first person he asked for.”

He was the first person he’d called for when he’d been bleeding, dying, and Nick will never forget that. Still, he nods. It gives him a sense of warmth nonetheless.

“Go wait for him in the waiting room,” he says. “We’re going to try to get him to walk. His muscle retention is astounding, given everything he suffered.”

“Miracle drug,” Nick murmurs. “This is the age of miracles, I guess.”

It doesn’t feel like it as he has a seat in one of the hospital chairs, waiting.

Then the door opens and they lead his husband out, and Nick reconsiders.

The doctors step back immediately and the door shuts behind them. He swallows. Phil is so pale, washed out in a paper gown, weary and tired. There’s blood around the edges of his lips, his fingertips, bruises on his arms and legs from the bed.

Their eyes meet, and a rush of color and vitality floods him immediately. Phil beams and reaches out to him.

Nick’s legs won’t move. He curses them, trying to get up.

 _Phil spent a year in surgery!_ he swears at them. _And you can’t even get up! He’s_ walking!

“Nick,” Phil breathes, tears running down his face. “Hey, boss.”

“Baby,” Nick says, his voice shaking. “Come here.”

Phil takes the last few steps and Nick pulls him into his arms, folding him into his grip completely and immediately, before he can think he might be squeezing him too hard, hurting him. Phil grins, kissing his face and settling into his grasp as Nick holds onto him tight.

“I’m here,” Phil sighs in pleasure. “I’m right here, I’ve missed you so much…”

“Oh, Jesus, me too,” Nick says, almost laughing. There’s so much relief swelling up in him that he almost feels sick. “I love you so much, baby, I love you so, so much. I’ve missed you too much for my own good.”

Phil kisses him lightly on the mouth. “You could’ve come, you know.”

Nick stills.

“Where, Phil?” Nick says. “Where could I have gone?”

“Oh, to Tahiti,” Phil says, his smile small and full. “It’s a magical place, Nick. Just like we dreamed.”

He takes his hand and leans on his shoulder. “I found a nice place where we could stay, maybe, when we went ourselves. It’s beautiful, Nick. We’ll go there for our honeymoon, I decided.”

“Of course, baby,” Nick says. “Just like we always planned.”

Phil nods.

“I wish you’d gone this time,” he says, his voice small. “I know you were busy. But I still really wish you could’ve gone. I missed you.”

Nick nods. “I know, baby. I missed you too. I missed you so much.”

“So I came back,” Phil says, satisfied. “Because you missed me. And I missed you!”

Nick nods, letting Phil kiss his forehead. “Absolutely, baby. I missed you so bad.”

Phil hugs him tight. “It’s okay now. All I have left is some physical therapy, and then…then they said I could go back into field.”

“Baby, I don’t know,” Nick hedges, doubtful. It’s a cold grey feeling in his chest, clenching.

_Stay here with me. Stay here where they’ll never hurt you and no one will ever touch you. Where I can make sure you’re loved._

“I have to, Nick! I had a plan,” Phil says. “I’ll ask Melinda. Get her back on a team again, make sure she’s ready, and then maybe she’ll go back into the field. What do you think?”

Nick closes his eyes.

“Oh, Phil,” he says, weary. “Sounds like a plan, baby.”

“I can’t wait,” Phil sighs. “A few more weeks.”

He squeezes Nick’s hand. “I can go home, too. They said I only have to make daily trips, not overnight stays. So—so we’ll go home.”

Nick nods, holding onto him tight. He can feel the scar on his back, thicker and nastier than the one on his chest. His wedding ring presses against it when he squeezes tighter.

_Nothing worth doing you don’t get your hands dirty for._

“We’ll go home,” Nick agrees. “Let’s get a cab though. I’m tired.”

Phil nods, nuzzling him. “Me too. Let’s have a big breakfast tomorrow and just go to bed.”

Nick nods in agreement, stroking his hair before letting Phil get up.

He watches him leave, the doctors ushering him off, and Doctor Glass’ look is too sympathetic to make Nick do anything but snarl.

He’s got his one good eye back. He can see again. And Phil is alive, standing in front of him. Nothing else matters. It was all worth it, all of it.

Nick watches night fall for a few minutes before he gets his phone out and calls for a taxi.

Phil rides next to him, wearing only a button-up, slacks, and his shoes.

“No suit jacket?” Nick says. “No tie? I barely recognize you.”

“They didn’t have mine, I’m just borrowing,” Phil yawns. “I barely feel like myself either.”

Nick flinches.

Phil doesn’t notice, nuzzling him. “God, I really am so, so sleepy.”

He rubs his back, wordless, trying not to think about the creeping horror in the back of his mind that Phil might never wake up if he falls asleep again. He has to trust Phil. Has to trust his own sacrifice.

Nick helps him out of the car, pays their fare with a huge tip, and nudges Phil over the threshold. Phil groans in relief, making his way through the whole house and flitting off to his Cap memorabilia room.

“Nick!” he squeals. “Nick! He signed my cards! He signed my cards, he signed my cards! Look!”

“I saw them, baby. Kept them safe for you,” Nick promises, making up the bed.

He wishes he’d burned them.

Phil comes back into their room, looking around and sighing with delight.

“Wow,” he says. “You kept it so neat. I’m so proud.”

“Wasn’t around much,” Nick says. “Was busy. But I’m glad it’s good.”

He undresses, standing in front of Phil, vulnerable. Phil cocks his head, regards him, and crosses the room, touching his face. It’s a silent query, a brush of fingers along fabric. Nick nods, wordless.

Phil’s fingers are nimble, undoing it deftly until the small dark patch is cupped in his hands. He sets it down gently before reaching up to touch Nick’s face, cupping his scars carefully.

Both eyes regard Phil and see him completely.

“Hi,” Phil says. “I love you. I’ve missed your face.”

He nuzzles him a little. “I saw it in my dreams sometimes. But you always looked so sad, so worried…”

He holds Nick close. “No more of that, okay? I’ve got you now. Let’s go to bed.”

Nick undresses him, unbuttoning every button and sliding down his slacks. He kisses Phil’s throat and listens to him whimper before he brushes tender fingers along his scars.

“You survived,” Nick praises him. “And baby, I’m so proud. You survived. You’re safe.”

“I did,” Phil agrees, a hesitant little smile on his face. “And you don’t mind the scars?”

Nick actually laughs a little. “How could I? You never cared about mine.”

“Oh, yes I did,” Phil says. “I just thought they meant you were so, so brave. I still do.”

Nick closes his eyes. He can feel Phil under his touch, so that’s enough for now. “I know, baby. Same to you.”

Phil lets Nick press a kiss to his lips one more time before he’s ushered into bed, Nick rolling over to wrap his arms tight around Phil, stroking his side.

Phil doesn’t dream that night. But Nick does. And when he wakes up screaming, he has no idea what to say to Phil.

He doesn’t have to say a word. Phil sees his pain and holds him tight.

That’s the point of having one good eye, Nick thinks. Always able to see your worst better than you can yourself.

He holds Phil and prays the blood on his hands does not stain him.


End file.
